Word.ws English Dictionary

dubby

dubby adjective: in the style of dub music; having been heavily remixed, particularly with reduced vocals or emphasised bass.

Adjective

dubby (comparative more dubby, superlative most dubby)

  1. In the style of dub music; having been heavily remixed, particularly with reduced vocals or emphasised bass.
    • What's striking about the record is how PiL assimilated both the dread feel of roots reggae and the dub aesthetic of subtraction (stripping out instruments, using empty space), without ever resorting to obviously dubby production effects like reverb and echo.2005, Simon Reynolds, Rip it up and start again: postpunk 1978-1984
    • As this "song with no words" rose from its dubby beginning to a roaring Crescendo, MacKayre sang, […]2009, Mark Andersen, Mark Jenkins, Dance of Days: Updated Edition: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital
  2. (dated, dialectal) stubby, stumpy; Lacking shapeliness or finesse.
    • Why is its brim an object to be perpetually plucked and pinched with dubby fingers?1863, “Flowers of the Witness-Box”, in Charles Dickens, editor, All the Year Round
    • I look just like all short, dubby, light-complexioned girls.1868, Camilla Willian, “So as by Fire”, in Ballou's Monthly Magazine
  3. (dated, dialectal) wet and muddy; dirty
    • "Set the umbrella ready, and my pattens at the door, for I fear the roads are dubby."1832, John Galt, Stanley Buxton: or, The schoolfellows
    • I was going to stand on it, but my boots are a bit dubby1994, Duncan McLean, Blackden

Noun

dubby (plural dubbies)

  1. (slang) Synonym of rubby-dub (“drinker of alcohol in non-beverage form”).
    Synonyms:
    rubby-dub

Synonyms of dubby

Forms of dubby

Adjective
comparativemore dubby
superlativemost dubby
Noun
pluraldubbies

Origin of dubby

From dub + -y.

Questions about dubby

What does dubby mean?
Dubby means in the style of dub music; having been heavily remixed, particularly with reduced vocals or emphasised bass.
What part of speech is dubby?
Dubby can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near dubby in the dictionary

  1. dubbins
  2. dubble
  3. dubbo
  4. dubbos
  5. dubbs
  6. dubby
  7. dubcon
  8. dubdown
  9. dubdowns
  10. Dube
  11. Dubeau

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dubby (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dubby.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dubby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.